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Attenborough’s polar trip: The tech that made Frozen Planet possible

This article was taken from the November 2011 issue of Wired magazine. Be the first to read Wired's articles in print before they're posted online, and get your hands on loads of additional content bysubscribing online.

Subfreezing temperatures. Ferocious winds. Killer animals. Human beings aren't meant to exist at the poles, let alone film nature documentaries there. So when the BBC decided to make Frozen Planet, a seven-part programme about polar icescapes and wildlife, they had to give their equipment something of an upgrade in order to make it resilient enough to meet the challenge.

This was to be expected -- the difficulty of shooting in these brutal regions was the impetus for the series, says David Attenborough, the show's 85-year-old narrator. "[Executive producer] Alastair Fothergill was saying, 'Where is the least filmed area in the world?' Answer: the poles," recalls Attenborough. "But will your recording devices work at -20°C? And the answer's usually no." So in 2007, the team developed winterised versions of their equipment, which they tested in a deep freeze near Bristol.

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Their day-to-day Panasonic Varicam cameras, with which they filmed HD footage of ice-dwelling creatures such as penguins and frozen caterpillars, had to be kept warm or they ceased to work. As a solution, the technicians fitted the cameras with two batteries so they could be permanently switched on. Homemade covers ("polar-bear jackets", as the crew called them) were fitted around the bodywork to capture battery heat for warmth.

Some of the more spectacular shots required a gimbal-stabilised helicopter camera rig. Before they set off, the show's technicians cold-modified it with a combination of low-temperature-functioning lubricants and heating elements they placed around its circuit boards. This rig allowed the crew to document extraordinary sights, including killer whales hunting seals in a co-ordinated fashion. "Nobody had ever filmed that before," says Attenborough. "Scott reported it but people always rejected it. When I first saw it, it absolutely took my breath away."

Nor had anyone ever filmed the formation of a brinicle, he says.

Caused by a sudden, localised drop in seawater temperature, this is a super-chilled underwater icicle that extends finger-like down to the seabed, freezing everything in its path. To achieve the footage, divers cut a hole in the ice and set up a time-lapse-photography studio below, their cameras secured in watertight casings. With only 60 minutes of protection from the cold of the polar waters, they had to work fast. "I don't think a scientist ever dreamed that anybody would be lunatic enough to take down the sort of gear you needed," says Attenborough. "Magic!"

Attenborough visited the poles twice for the show, in 2010. He had been before but that didn't make it any safer: "There is a sequence where I'm sitting in a tent and, by God, I thought at one point I was going to be blown off the mountainside." The rest of the team visited each pole much more frequently.

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Attenborough has been making nature programmes for 57 years. But he says that there are further adventures to be had. "I'd like to go to the middle of the Gobi desert, because of the fossils, but I never will. It's a long way away, and when you get there there's nothing much to see. I don't think anyone will be silly enough to send me."

Frozen Planet will be shown from the end of October on BBC One

This article was first published in the November 2011 issue of WIRED magazine